We believe that it is important to offer young children opportunities to make connections between academic learning, developmental necessities, and creative play. The Common Core Standards encourage project based learning, hands-on inquiry, and opportunities to explore materials and learn through play. It’s important to remember that all children learn at different rates but ALL children learn best through active, sensory integrated experiences. The Common Core Standards provide clear learning guidelines in mathematics and English language arts, but it is up to the teacher to implement instructional strategies that are academically sound and developmentally appropriate. In our book, From Play to Practice we describe a hands-on professional development process designed to help teachers enrich their understanding of active hands-on learning and the creative use of open-ended materials aligned with the Common Core Standards.
The teacher is the key to developing instructional strategies that encourage active, engaged learning to insure success with the Common Core Standards.

How do you teach preschool teachers to leave the craft table and play with the children? As a Director, I find my staff teach through the arts and crafts rather than helping to guide/support play. They feel the children's play needs to be uninhibited by adults, and their role is to use their arts and crafts time to spend quality one-on-one time with each child. I don't seem to be doing a good job changing this.

It is an important balancing act for teachers to know when to step into children’s moments of learning and when to step back and not interfere. One of our first recommendations would be to provide the teachers with a play experience using open-ended materials. As documented in our book, this concrete play experience for teachers affords them a chance to refresh their perspective on play and provides invaluable insight into what happens for children when they play. This insight gives the teacher an expanded awareness of different forms of play. The reason we suggest offering a hands-on play experience for your staff is that it stimulates their creativity and provides a unique opportunity to reflect deeply on their teaching practice and discover new ways of being and interacting with children. As noted in the quote from the last photograph from the selection of above “When offered a carefully structured setting, open-ended materials, and a sensitive play coach, teachers can refocus and rethink the role of play in children’s development.”

Here are some developmental outcomes directly associated with quality play experiences and art making. The child or adult will:

Develop the power of concentration, the capacity to focus and engage the mind in purposeful attention.
For many children, exploring objects, arranging and constructing them in patterns and designs is a deeply satisfying sensory experience. The child focuses their mind through their fingertips, concentrating on the task at hand. Whatever the age or ability level, whatever the background or needs of the child, as the child inquires and plays with open-ended materials, there is a dynamic transformation of objects and thoughts forming new patterns and relationships. The knowledge derived or constructed from such direct hands-on personal experience, carries with it emotional meaning, as well as a sense of power, control and accomplishment. Knowledge derived from self activity is alive!

Develop the capacity of elaboration, expansion, imagination, vision, and reasoning with complexity and richness. Open-ended materials like, clay, paint, blocks, and a variety of other non-representational reusable resources allow children to elaborate on their ideas, to imagine and create, to define meaning and purpose to the objects and how they are used. This process of the child controlling and defining purpose engenders a sense of power, self-determination, and authority. It is essential for children to feel a sense of control in their lives. Play with open-ended materials helps them to take charge, make choices, and determine the content of their experience. In this way, the process of synthesizing content and meaning from direct concrete manipulative experience, of “making sense” out of the materials and their own actions, occurs naturally as they construct with the openness of the materials.

Develop the ability to organize ideas around a central concept; higher ideal or luminous belief or understanding that will serve as a guide for life. As children engage in art making and play they are connecting with their ideas and impulses through the focused doing and making of three-dimensional representations. This mind organizing physical experience, enable and support elaboration, expansions on ideas into bigger patterns and mental framework or schema. The act of learning how to learn, how to put materials together into harmonious, self satisfying forms, of connecting materials with ideas through personal intention, is a coherent process reflecting wholeness and creativity. Learning how to learn, how to think and organize and regulate intention begins first with physical materials.

In our book, we outline seven principles on which the self active play process was built. Principle 1 states: Play is a source of creative energy, a positive force and safe context for constructing meaningful self-knowledge and revitalizing the human spirit across the continuum of the human life-cycle. As teachers participate in a self active play experience they gain insight, they realize the intensity of feelings and the depth of learning that takes place during play. This insight then impacts their professional practice. There are many examples in the book of this kind of connection between a teachers’ play and children’s learning. Here are some other excerpts from teachers’ reflective journals after a play experience:

"This activity was a nice break from just hearing about the importance of play, and it actually confirmed through personal experience how healing and deeply enriching non-directive play can be. This play activity enabled me to draw from direct experience, and better understand what happens with children when they play. In a profession that requires me to observe children at play, it was fun to get the chance to be on the other side and just enjoy freedom from expectations while making important connections to my own way of teaching. It also helped me put myself in my children’s shoes to see how overwhelming it can be, how challenging it is at times to play alone or with others."

"I expected to do more self reflection during the solo play, however, I actually realized more about myself when we joined the group. I do not play well with others! I had more fun with one other partner than by myself, but once we joined the group I felt anxious and out of control. My fellow group members seemed to work well with one another they chatted, built a maze, etc. but I could not engage. Looking back on my childhood I realized I was never good in groups. I think it’s important to realize that all types of play, solo, one-on-one, and group, are all important, but we as individuals at times feel more comfortable or benefit with one or the other forms of play. And so do children.”

“This play process helped me better understand what children go through in their play! I am going to be much more thoughtful before I intrude on their creative flow!”

I am a PK3 teacher who LOVES to play!! I try to limit crafts because they aren't open ended or foster higher-order thinking. I change out my homeliving center every month to match our theme. Our theme this month has been community helpers. Everyday I do a 15 min. large group or so to introduce the theme and then we play for 30-45 min. (center time). I incorporate "art" into my play. When we did construction worker they had to build with different recycled materials, draw blueprints, and use play tools. I introduced all the materials, played with them for about 20 min. (engaging them) and then observed them for another 10 while they played themselves. And they LOVED it! They went home talking all about it and asked if we could play again the next day. The other teachers at my school do more crafts than play, but I back up my teaching with researched based articles on play. I want to do what is best for my kids and be the most effective in my teaching.

I believe in play and I am able to provide play during my kindergarten day, however at times it is hard for me to use clear, concise language to back it up to colleagues, administrators, and parents. Can you explain the key benefits of a play based kindergarten, as well as the amount of time that should ideally be dedicated to play in a full day kindergarten? Thanks!

Incorporating play in a kindergarten day is a “hot topic”. As mentioned in an earlier post (see Belinda’s question) there is some legislative movement as well as some cultural awareness of the importance of the use of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) in the primary grades. When we look specifically at play in kindergarten, there are several components to consider since play is a very complex process. When we look at physical play we can use research and recommendations from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that advocates for an hour a day of active physical movement for children and adults, which would support reinstatement of recess back into the school day, especially for our youngest learners in the public school setting. (See recommendations for activity/types of activities to promote physical well-being at http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/children.html).

When considering the beneficial elements that various types of play have for our children, it is an easy JUMP to see the connections between using “playful pedagogies” or a “play based” kindergarten. According to Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff (2011) empirical evidence is clear that “children can learn and learn well in playful classrooms” (p. 111). Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff promote the idea of playful learning that incorporates “a whole-child approach to education that includes both free play and guided play each of which is related to growth in academic and social outcomes” (p. 112). In guided play the environment of the classroom is set up to promote curricular goals while at the same time “stimulate children’s natural curiosity, exploration, and play with learning oriented objects/materials” (p. 113). The teacher then becomes the facilitator of the environment while stimulating the child’s self-discovery through open-ended questioning, which promotes the child to think and act beyond their present level of internalized understanding. This is an example of how a teacher can “scaffold” a child’s learning and is well- documented and supported by various researchers such as the work by Bodrova and Leong in “Tools of the Mind”. This approach to learning sees the child at the center of the learning process and the child possesses knowledge accrued through life experiences prior to formal schooling, thus visualizes the child as capable.

So, a play-based kindergarten would be filled with centers that promote free play and at the same time promotes the curricular goals set by the standards through the types of materials that are present in the centers. The teacher facilitates a rich learning environment with materials and experiences that promotes cognitive development as well as social, emotional, and physical development. The free play provides a context in which the child uncovers the “why I need” literacy, math, science, and social studies as a way to understand their world. Through guided play the teacher provides the scaffolding to call attention to the details of these self-discoveries. So from our perspective, the whole day in a quality classroom should consist of play: play with objects, play with ideas, and play with others. The intrinsic motivation that is activated during play provides the child with the impetus to sustain attention, to hypothesize about their discoveries, and to then understand the results of their experimentations. The teacher carefully observes the children during play, noticing moments of difficulty or barriers the child experiences during the play. This is where it becomes a vital place for a knowledgeable teacher to scaffold the learning without overstepping or interfering with the learning process. Is it time to prompt the children with a question or to let the child struggle with the problem for themselves? There is much to learn for the child through struggle and perseverance. As teachers, we can’t MAKE children learn. Our best practice as teachers is to set the stage by creating a rich learning environment with materials, time, and freedom to explore and express their highest potential as part of the learning process. In the end, it really does come down to the quality of the relationship between the child and the teacher. That relationship is built upon the teacher’s ability to understand the developmental needs of each child and the use of effective intentional teaching strategies to meet curriculum goals.
We can explain the benefits of a play-based kindergarten as we attempted to do above but the words will fall short. The surest and best way we know, as outlined in our book, is to provide a hands on play experience with open-ended materials, time to reflect and then discuss what happened and its connection to children’s learning.

What a perfect question, Sarah!!! Incorporating play in Kindergarten is something that teachers struggle with. I look forward to what the authors have to say about this! REALLY important!!! Thanks for asking it!

How do we get our administrators and families to understand that children need hand-on exploration in order to learn? I get so frustrated when I see kindergarteners and first graders sitting all day and the teachers complaining that the students have behavior problems when in reality the behaviors occur because the children are bored or are having difficulties with the way the subjects are being taught. I see the current trend of push-down heading towards preschool. I need to know how to help others see that playing is an important part of education.

Many early childhood professionals are feeling the same feelings and frustrations as you expressed in your questions. First, we suggest arranging a play experience for administrators and families. In our book (p. 105) we share a story from Hawken School in Lyndurst, Ohio. At Hawken there is deliberate attention devoted to promoting play within the adult community through family art activities, family play events, and parent educational evenings. The concrete play experience does provide a strong foundation on which to build an understanding of the importance of play for children.

Another area that has begun to have an impact on the field of early childhood is the research from neuroscience. The results from many substantial studies support the need for children to move and be active to promote neurological development. The link between physical activity and academic achievement were examined and results from these studies describe an increase in brain function, increased energy levels, improved self-regulation and self-esteem, relief from boredom, mathematics and reading achievement. One researcher, Scheuer, suggests that normal physical activity advances cognitive function and increases the production of chemicals that protect and maintain neural wellbeing. (Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2008, p. 69).

Another interesting line of research is investigating executive function located in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This is one of the last areas of the brain to develop and the skills needed to perform executive function include the merging together of social, emotional, and cognitive abilities. According to Ellen Galinsky (2010, p. 4-5) “key components of executive function include: goal orientation; keeping multiple ideas in working memory while still paying attention and thinking flexibly; pulls together emotions and thought to enable reflection, analyzing, planning and evaluation.” These skills are necessary for success in the 21st Century. In play, children use and develop the type of skills that lead to a well-developed prefrontal cortex and executive functions.

A final area of great hope and possibilities in addressing your concerns is the prominence of “quality” early childhood education as emphasized by President Obama in his State of the Union message. Along with the possibility of expanding quality early childhood education so that more children may participate, there is also a bill called the “CONTINUUM OF LEARNING ACT” introduced by Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Don Young (R-AK), which recommends the continuation of developmentally appropriate and comprehensive standards and teaching in the early grades. One of the recommendations is for principals to be trained in child development so they are encouraging teacher behaviors that will in turn promote children growing and learning in developmentally appropriate ways. See the NAEYC website for more details on this new legislation. (http://www.naeyc.org/policy/federal/2_14_13).

The enhanced emphasis on “child development” within the CONTINUUM OF LEARNING ACT is especially auspicious to recognizing and supporting the prominent benefits of play and hands-on exploration in fostering creative learning and healthy human development in the early years. This federal act will help to highlight and close the frustrating gap you sighted between what you know to be best practices, evidence based research, and classroom practice.

As early childhood educators we all have the ethical professional responsibility to promote and support children’s development and learning through quality play, given its essential role in the lives of young children.

According to NAEYC’s “References to Play in NAEYC Position Statements: Developmentally Appropriate Practice Guidelines, November 2012

“Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation as well as promoting language, cognition, and social competence,….”

“In the preschool years, teachers can help children develop self-regulation by scaffolding high-level dramatic play, helping children learn to express their emotions, and engaging children in planning and decision making.”

“Recommended teaching practices include opportunities to engage in play that incorporates literacy tools, such as writing grocery lists in dramatic play, making signs in blocks building, and using icons and words in exploring a computer game.”

“With teacher guidance, an individual child’s play interest can develop into classroom- wide, extended investigation or project that includes rich mathematical learning. In classrooms in which teachers are alert to all these possibilities, children’s play continually stimulates and enriches mathematical explorations and learning.”

“Accordingly, early childhood programs should furnish materials and sustained periods of time that allow children to learn mathematics through playful activities that encourage counting, measuring, constructing with blocks, playing board and card games, and engaging in dramatic play, music and art.”

So, as we see the expansion of quality early childhood in the preschool years, we also will see a “pushing up” effect for developmentally appropriate practices in the primary grades where it is also imperative to use “best practices” to promote children’s learning.

The Hands, Heart, and Mind ® Play Experiences are exactly what you seem to be asking about in your question. This professional development provides a concrete, hands-on experience with open-ended materials for teachers to awaken to the idea of the importance of play. Our self active play process has specific steps that provide the highest potential for a transformative play experience. Many people do “play workshops” but our process is unique in that the adults are fully immersed in the play as an individual. It is this first hand knowledge that enables the adult to relate to the kinds of learning, growth, and knowledge construction that occurs for children as they play.

Specific activities we suggest would be to engage the teachers in a play experience as outlined in our book. Specific outcomes from such a professional development workshop could be:
• Learn to create quality play experiences for children and adults using open ended materials
• Construct, implement and evaluate new approaches to teaching and how to put play back into practice
• Strengthen teachers’ vision of self as play advocate
• Develop more reflective teaching practices
• Deepen understanding of teachers’ role in the learning process
• Developing strategies for building business partnerships to acquire open-ended materials
• Explore action strategies for strengthening NAEYC affiliate play, policy and practice.

The range of questions that can be asked depends on the group and the specific purpose of the workshop that you offer your teachers. However, we recommend that beginning questions relate to the participant’s own play so that the response to questions come from their own direct experience.

• Is there anything you might like to say about your play experience?
• What thoughts, feelings, ideas arose during your play?
• What have you learned from this play experience?
• What relationship do you see between your play, the materials and cognitive development, such as in early math skills?
• What connection do you think exists between your play, social-competence and emotional wellbeing?
• What do you see as the essential elements of this play experience?
• What are some implications of using this experience with children, parents or other teachers?
• How do you see using this process with young children?
• What is the teacher’s role is facilitating rich play experiences with young children?
• How might this experience influence your practice of play in your classroom?
• What would you need to do this type of play workshop with other adults?

While we anticipate questions that might be asked, we believe the most important questions may arise from our careful observations made during play. In the role of a play coach or facilitator of play, we believe a prime objective is to support the creative expression of participants. In this way the play helps to consolidate and align their understanding with deeper personal meaning and connections with professional practice.

Do you have a story of a sceptic who did not think much of learning through play who then changes his or her views after participating in a play workshop? Someone who stayed on the sidelines but then participated?

Dear Raphael,
In our book there is a wonderfully compelling story shared by a teacher in Pennsylvania that had a transformation in her teaching as a result of participating in the Early Childhood Summer Institute at Millersville University. There is also a story from Hawken School in Lyndhurst, Ohio, which tells of the transformation that took place with teachers that attended a play experience. There are several stories throughout the book that highlight the kinds of change you mention in your question: a skeptic, the play experience, and then transformations or changes after having been part of the play experience. That is one of the amazing features of the self active play process…it awakens within each of us a window of opportunity for new knowledge and understanding to grow. It is that growth that transforms perceptions, values, beliefs and behaviors. Here is another example from a reflection completed after a play experience at NAEYC national conference:

“Over the years in this field I have had to learn how to play. I found that it still does not come natural to me. My body felt tense when you suggested we choose a set of materials to explore and investigate. While the materials looked interesting, I was resistant and simply did not want to sit on the floor and play with materials. And yet I have such a desire to play and enjoy it. After seeing what people were doing and how engaged they were with the stuff, I decided to give it a try too.
As it turned out, this session was amazing and a great way to end the day. By 4:00, most conference participants are ready to shut down, but by this active play method, the presenters did not lecture on what is happening inside ourselves; they helped us confront, embrace, and validate what is happening within ourselves through real play!
Wow! It was the exact experience that I needed at the moment. It gave me an opportunity to “settle down”. As I was playing by myself I thought about my own children. I play with them, but I could play more. My day is often too busy with “getting things done”. I realized again the value of stopping, slowing down and playing with no agenda but just enjoying the moment interacting with my own ideas or interacting with others.
In today’s hustle and bustle, many teachers, including myself, have lost the joy, value, and understanding of play. Thank you for helping me to understand why play is so important and for reminding us to take time for play everyday. I will use a similar hands-on play technique to provide my teachers with a hands-on method of teaching children the way they learn best: THROUGH PLAY.”

Do you think if we started to use terms like "hands on experimentation" or "opportunity to learn through trial and error" that people would have more respect for the role of play in children's learning?

We do wonder about that…and it is exactly what is happening – children use their hands to experiment through the use of a trial and error methodology in order to promote understanding and order. Could it be helpful establishing a more exact line of communication? Perhaps. There does seem to be a need to develop a shared language with parents and others outside the field of early childhood education to establish shared meaning when we discuss the term “play”. Our book is written in part with the hope that it helps to reveal the meaning and benefits of play by considering one specific form of play as a way to consider the potential “play” offers within a clarified or specific process.

We believe play is where learning begins,….learning how to learn. Yes, people have a hard time with the word play. Play means so many different things to people. Part of the problem is with the “word” play and part of the problem is “understanding” the value of play, which only comes through direct personal sensory experience. With understanding comes respect. A basic tenet of “From Play to Practice” is that it is through the direct hands-on sensory experience of “self active” play that both deeper understanding and respect for play arise together.

Self active play is a specific form of play which refers to a process of “hands-on experimentation” and investigation using open-ended materials, reflection, dialogue and photographs. As revealed through the journals, photographs, and author comments, “From Play to Practice” shares a process of play learning through active engagement and self-discovery as an effective way of promoting play understanding and respect for a deeper meaning of play with both children and adults. “Self-discovery” refers to the “self” in two ways. One is that you get to do it. You get to choose materials and what you do with them yourself, you initiate, and control the flow of attention, intention and discovery. In the Hands, Heart & Mind Play Workshops described in our book, you engage in active “trial and error methodology” as a way of promoting understanding, order and respect for play.

A thoughtful guided play process of being focused and fully present made possible by integrating the hands, heart and mind in open-ended play, creates a vital wholeness of being, a heightened awareness and mindfulness within what we call the “play space”. This optimum learning process generates an “inner connection” of personal emotional meaning. Examples of these “inner connections” are vividly revealed in the journal comments of workshop participants shared in From Play to Practice.

“Self activity” in Froebel’s sense of the word and the authors, implies not merely that the child or the adult does all him or herself, but that at all times the whole self is to be active,…hands, heart & mind engaged in all phases of learning and being. Self-discovery in that sense of the word also refers to the discovery or deepening awareness of your “self”. The authors believe and have endeavored to express through their writing and research, through the journals of unedited comments of people attending self active play workshops, a value added benefit of feeling and realizing something immensely valuable in this process. The authors believe this has to do with developing “self” knowledge and a heightening awareness of the intuitive self. We think of self active play as an expressive system for opening pathways to the construction of inner knowledge, creativity, and emotional wellbeing. When play is experienced in this way as an adult, teachers and parents are more likely to understand and respect the word “play” and to appreciate it as a natural wholesome creative force, as a primary developmental necessity forming the foundation of self-respect, self-esteem, self-competence, self-recognition.

These photos show so much about what a child can learn through play. But it's so hard to describe. It's easy for a teacher to tell a parent, "She wrote her name herself today!" but harder to describe all a child is showing he/she learns through play. What are some ways teachers can share with families what a child has learned through play but in simple words. When I look at the first photo I can see all that child is figuring out but I don't know how I would convey even a piece of what that child is learning to her parents on the fly during pick up or drop off.

One specific way we recommend is through inviting parents in for a “Play Workshop”. Our book does outline the basic format for conducting the self active play process which then provides the parent with concrete, first hand knowledge of their own that can connect then to what the child is feeling and doing through play. You are so right in that it is hard to “tell” a parent on the fly during pick up or drop off of the intricate complexities that occur during play for children. But if parents participate in their own play experience, this rekindles for the parent an appreciation for the power of play.

After a play experience with parents, then continue to share photos with some highlights on the back outlining some of the important items that are occurring during the play, drawing the parent’s attention the important aspects of learning that must occur in order to provide a strong foundation for the child’s learning throughout their school career.

Do you have access to technology? Could you videotape the child during play with a narrative by you outlining the growth that is taking place and then send it home with the parent? Then could you ask the parent to do the same thing by taping the child at home during play and explaining the learning that took place? Does your school have access to the internet and a teacher website? With parent permission, you could perhaps share small snippets of play scenarios and post on the website for all parents to see (parent permission is VITAL) and provide some guidance for understanding what is taking place in the video.

The powerful benefits of play are difficult to express with just words on the fly during pick up or drop off. Too often we depend on words to convey the content and meaning of play. As you mention in your statement, the photos shows the child engaged in play, but that too falls short of conveying the meaning. The photos help to show us some of what is happening, but there is nothing like the experience of hands-on play to help parents realize the value of play. It is in the doing that we understand. That is why we urge offering hands-on play workshops for parents with time to reflect on what they experienced and how it relates to how and what children learn during their play.